Assessors’ job

To the Editor:

In your article titled “Out with the old and in with the new (taxes)” (Sept. 9), you state that there was a 51 percent increase in McHenry assessment appeals in 2010, and that was a 40 percent increase over 2009.

You also state that with every appeal, the county doesn’t get less revenue but that the decrease is divided equally among every other property in its boundaries. In essence, Mr. Jones bears the burden of paying part of Mr. Smith’s taxes because Mr. Smith took the time to go through the tedious process of correcting the job that our county assessor is paid to do – assess properties – correctly.

Does anyone else see the irony in this bogus tax structure?

Instead of having 9,000 people feel like they have to appeal their tax assessments, we as taxpayers should be able to rely on the assessed value and pay our fair share of taxes without having to do the job of our county officials, too.

McHenry County taxpayers should be outraged and not be willing to accept yet another broken Illinois tax system.